KALAMAZOO, MI -- If ever there's a good time to see the inside of a jail cell, it's this Tuesday.

A $23-million expansion of the Kalamazoo County Jail will be unveiled to the public Tuesday, April 2. Sheriff Richard Fuller will host an open house from 1 to 6 p.m., with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 2 p.m.

The 75,000-square-foot addition, which includes 93 steel cells, will give the jail a capacity of about 500 inmates. The county lock-up is chronically overcrowded; on a recent day, for example, it held 393 inmates, 66 above its state-rated capacity of 327.

Fuller will open the new facilities in phases, because certain areas need to be functioning before others can be brought online."This whole project is very much like a puzzle," Fuller said while giving a tour Tuesday.

The kitchen and laundry areas will be brought on line first. Construction will continue into the fall, with the four pods that will house inmates and the rest of the addition expected to be fully functional by October.

The design is in stark contrast to the barred, linear jail cells in the existing jail, which was built in 1971. The addition includes two 40-person pods and two 32-person pods, with cells that open up to a day room where inmates will be able to have video visitations with family or watch educational TV programs.

Guards will monitor the pods from a control tower that has tilted, reflective glass windows allowing them to see into every cell, a setup that Fuller said will allow jail staff to manage inmates more efficiently. "What I spend now I save in the long run when it comes to personnel costs," he said.

The renovated jail will also have a much larger receiving area. It will have a lobby where people arrested on minor offenses can wait while being processed. The area also has two padded cells, several two-person cells and three "dirty tanks," where people who are soiled and heavily intoxicated can recuperate alone.

A new medical facility has the capacity to treat 23 inmates, in contrast
to the current medical facility, which is one cell, and also includes space for a community mental health counselor.

A new garage attached to the receiving area will allow for larger vehicles and better traffic flow.

A video arraignment room will decrease costs of transporting inmates to courthouses downtown for arraignments. Fuller said he is also trying to work with the courts to set up weekend arraignments.

The kitchen will have equipment, including larger pots and
ovens, and increased storage and freezer space, that will allow workers to
cook and deliver food more efficiently for up to 500 inmates.
Instead of wheeling out a buffet of food and putting it on trays near cells, the larger kitchen will allow them to prepare trays in the
kitchen and deliver them.

A
new laundry room comes with washers and dryers with a 60-pound
capacity, replacing older machines that are no
longer made.

Fuller said the new facility, including the kitchen, laundry room, inmate property room and receiving area, could handle 1,000 inmates if more bed space was built.

Currently, the county houses about 100 inmates a day at other jails because of its shortage of space, according to Fuller. The sheriff said he expects to save roughly $800,000 per year by not having to send Kalamazoo County inmates to other lockups, money he will use to pay the 40 additional employees needed to run the larger facilities. He said he hopes eventually to find funding to turn the old kitchen into two large locker rooms for employees.

The jail expansion was approved by the county board in 2011 after
decades of discussion. The county set aside money for years in order
to fund its construction.

The existing jail was built four decades ago,
when both the Kalamazoo and Portage public safety departments had their
own lockups. Those city jails have since closed, and Fuller said his
expectation is that the expanded jail will be able to handle Kalamazoo
County's needs for the next 30 years.

Emily Monacelli is a local government reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Contact her at emonacel@mlive.com. Follow her on Twitter.